China Influencer Summit: The key takeaways

Last week, marketing agency UpLab held its first China Influencer Summit. Opening with a keynote by the company’s Founder & Partner, Fabian Bern, he set the tone for the day by covering the key considerations of influencer marketing.

With China’s increasingly cluttered influencer space, it’s hard to know how to approach this rapidly growing marketing segment. But, throughout the summit, the speakers provided guidance on how to approach and select influencers. Here are our top takeaways:

– Although China is a hot market for influencer marketing, brands are often unclear about their goal, which stage influencers fit into their marketing funnel, what their objectives and timeline is. By determining these factors brands can select a target audience, social media channel, the type of content and influencer who is relevant.

– Instead of approaching influencers as transactional marketing, insure the relationship with KOLs (key opinion leaders) is one of co-creation to maximise your ROI. By treating an influencer as partner they are willing to give more.

– Run influencer marketing as an active campaign. Track performance metrics by creating ROI reports. This will enable you to adjust messaging in real-time and optimise performance to meet changing market or cultural trends.

– Micro influencers are good for building brand awareness without diluting the message. Due to their limited reach brands are able to reach these influencers’ niche following without running the risk of overexposure .

– Audiences will organically see branded content that builds familiarity. Citing Daniel Wellington as a successful case study, Engholm explained how micro influencers have led the watch brand to be one the most recognised Swedish brands among Chinese consumers.